Trends in Creative Youth Development Programs - Key concepts and five current trends

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanford

The paper explains creative youth development (CYD) as an out-of-school-time approach that merges creative skill-building, inquiry, and expression with positive youth development principles. It outlines shared program practices such as high expectations, positive risk taking, youth leadership, and community-focused social justice engagement. The article surveys CYD’s diverse disciplines and settings, summarizes historical foundations, and presents five current trends based on interviews, site visits, and related research, concluding with recommendations for the field and for researchers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Creative youth development definition and field overview

Shared characteristics and program formula

CYD disciplines and program settings

Research base, partnerships, and guiding principles

Historical foundation of CYD programming development

Current trends and recommendations

Trends in Creative Youth Development Programs Denise Montgomery Throughout the U.S., thousands of creativity-based out-of-school time (OST) programs combine principles of positive youth development with immersion in the creative process. Many of these programs refer to their work as creative youth development or CYD. According to the Creative Youth Development National Partnership (Montgomery, 2019): Creative youth development is a recent term for alongstanding theory of practice that integrates creative skill-building, inquiry, and expression with positive youth development principles, fueling young people’s imaginations and building critical learning and life skills. CYD is a diverse field. Programs include a constellation of creative disciplines and genres, including film making, sound engineering, styles of dance from step to modern to ballet folklórico , an array of two-and three-dimensional visual arts from comic book design to photography to sculpture, graphic design, game design, playwrighting, theatrical production, music performance and composition, journalism, and creative writing. CYD programs share characteristics common among programs that embrace positive youth development, including setting high expectations, encouraging positive risk taking, embracing youth leadership, and engaging young people in contributions to their communities and work for social justice. The basic formula of CYD is the combination DENISE MONTGOMERY is founder and principal of CultureThrive, a consulting practice focused on arts-based youth development. Her research has been covered by National Public Radio, The Washington Post, and Youth Today. Montgomery is lead author of Something to Say: Success Principles for Afterschool Arts Programs From Urban Youth and Other Experts and a contributing author to Youth Development Principles and Practices in Out-of-School Time Settings. of a holistic approach to positive youth development with hands-on creative inquiry. The creative process atthe heart of CYD programs contributes to tremendous, often transformative, personal growth for participants (Heath, Soep, & Roach, 1998; Hughes & Wilson, 2004) . The National Summit on Creative Youth Development (2014) proclaimed: As young people create their own work in the arts, humanities, and sciences, they build the personal, social, and intellectual capacities they need to succeed in school, career, and life. And as they experience the creative process over an extended period, they learn that they can use it to express their own identities, understand and change the world around them, and connect to the greater human experience. (p. 1) Creativity-based programs take place in a variety of settings and contexts, including: • Nonprofit organizations with a primary focus on CYD • Programs in arts organizations, such as museums • Programs embedded in youth development organizations • School-based OST programs • Community parks and recreation programs • Other community contexts, such as programs for court-involved or incarcerated young people In recent years, the heterogeneous field of CYD opment literature, CYD-specific literature, and a decade of primary research, in this landscape analysis I discuss five current trends in CYD program development. Since 2011, I have conducted in-depth interviews with more than 100 CYD practitioners, funders, program participants, and program alumni as well as experts in afterschool, the arts, and adolescence. I have done site visits at over 40 organizations providing CYD programs in more than 20 communities throughout the U.S. My colleagues Peter Rogovin and Neromanie Persaud and I, in a study for the Wallace Foundation (Montgomery et al. , 2013), identified 10 Principles of High-Quality Out-of-School Time Arts Programs, which have been widely used in the field. From 2016 to 2018, I served asthe inaugural director of the Creative Youth Development National Partnership, where I led an 18-mon

FAQs

What is creative youth development (CYD) and what principles does it integrate?

CYD integrates creative skill-building, inquiry, and expression with positive youth development principles. It aims to fuel young people’s imaginations while building critical learning and life skills.

What characteristics do CYD programs commonly share?

CYD programs typically set high expectations, encourage positive risk taking, embrace youth leadership, and engage young people in contributions that support their communities and social justice.

How is the article’s analysis of CYD trends developed?

The analysis draws on a landscape study, supplemented by subsequent interviews and site visits, plus ongoing participation in CYD conferences and initiatives. It also references earlier work identifying high-quality out-of-school time arts principles.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanford